Two paradigms of biopolitics: Prospects for a possible synthesis of the concepts of Michel Foucault and Grigorio Agamben

The article attempts to synthesize two theoretical approaches to consideration of modern society: the approaches of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben. The limitations of both concepts are noted. The value of this study lies in an attempt of offering the possibility of combining them. The validity of this approach stems from the fact that these two concepts are limited. Attempts to impose one or another model of biopolitics on modern society as a whole will be limited in theoretical terms. The article shows that Foucault's approach is primarily focused on the analysis of contemporary Western democracies, in particular France. Foucault identifies biopolitics with liberalism, which means that biopolitics is a new art of management. The limitations of this approach are revealed at the moment when we ask the question posed by Agamben. The question concerns the field of research on the policy of concentration camps in Germany in the 1930s-1940s. According to Agamben, any biopolitics is a continuation of the processes taking place in the concentration camp. Nevertheless, he comes to the conclusion that biopolitics is a policy of exclusion within the framework of a state of emergency. Thus, he actually rejects Foucault's concept of “regulation of life”. After the descriptions of these concepts are given in the article, there is an attempt to “embed” Agamben's concept into Foucault's theory of bio-power. Biopolitics functions as the “regulation of bare life”, and the “exclusion structure” permeates liberal societies. Therefore, the problem of this study could be represented in the following questions: Is it possible to include Agamben's theoretical construct (“bare life”, “sovereignty of power”, as well as “state of emergency”) in the composition of the Foucauldian analysis of modern Western society? And, if it is possible, how could it be done? At the same time, it is important to preserve the specifics of these two approaches. In order to prove this, the thesis is put forward that within the framework of the new art of management (neoliberalism), market actors are also institutions of biopolitics and perform the function of “exclusion”. As a result, by combining two different approaches to the problem of bio-power, the article shows how it is possible to represent the regulation of life (Foucault's concept) through sovereign exclusion/rejection (Agamben's concept), delineating the areas of responsibility of bio-power and preserving the logic of Foucault's reflections on the connection between biopolitics and the liberal art of management (“civil society” as an institution of regulation of “bare life”).

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